That's right: I rented "Street Kings 2" from a Blockbuster Express just to make these caps

Oh, the chalky, chalky irony.

2) The first undercover cop dude that is murdered is basically clipped as he is pedestrianizing it up (also public urinating it up, but I assume telling children not to take a whizz outside would have been a little too over-the-top).

7) "Don't play with guns." So rich.

8) "The police are your friends." Even richer.

Also: I'm assuming that behind ol' McTrademarkedCrimeDog is something about not doing drugs, which is also like rain on your wedding day and a free ride when you've already driven a criminal out to an abandoned farm and manufactured evidence so you can plant that evidence at your crime scenes.

Also, 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.

I complimented Dan Sullivan on his threads, but this particular suit totally makes him look all, "I'm a grown-up man in my big brother's hand-me-down suit that is a half size too big!"

I like Ray Liotta's sad-trombone expression, like he's all, "I told him not to leave the house without getting that altered and hemmed. He looks like Little Josh Baskin at the end of Big."

Dan Sullivan can pretend he wasn't transfixed during the storyline where Nick Corelli was like the Phantom of the Opera, only a former pimp in a very teal nightclub, and Miss Charlotte Ross sang "Wind Beneath My Wings" at least twice a week. But we all know the truth.

He also owned this cassingle:

How do you talk to an angel, indeed.

Tee hee.

That's all. Just...super cute.

Back in the day, when I worked for a closed-captioning company in Minneapolis, I was lucky enough to caption a terrible Ray Liotta movie where he took off his shirt and showed his giant guns. And a coworker and friend said to me, "Oh, my gosh, have you seen Corrina Corrina?" And then we made a girl date to watch it together, and Ray Liotta's character was super sad and repressed and he romanced Whoopi Goldberg, which seems like about the weirdest thing to get "Awwww" over, but it is totally "Awwwww."

Almost, almost makes a girl forget that Ray Liotta's primary strength is in making TERRIFYING FACES LIKE THIS. It's not like he's Pennywise or Jigsaw or anything: he just looks soulless and capable of disappearing you into some remote drainage ditch without a second thought. I try to imagine being on the receiving end of this completely fictional expression, and it makes me nervous.

Glad I'm not the only one (Shawn Hatosy isn't acting, and his sheen of terror sweat isn't from a spritz bottle; he's just trying to not be scared that Ray Liotta is a for-real crazy person who is going to strangle him in the midst of Method acting.)

I noticed while I was watching this scene that Dan touches/adjusts his gun, either subconsciously feeling threatened or out of habit, and Ray Liotta's reaction as Marty is subtle and great:

 And then the power balance shifts as soon as The Touchening begins...

Creepy creepy creepy.

THE FLAG IS A METAPHOR FOR THE THIN BLUE LINE (or something).

Also: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And after Dan has executed Marty, all lights are go (which is a metaphor too) (right?)

Nah-nah-nah-nahnahnah Street Kings!

Justified 2x11, "Full Commitment"

All right, it's come down to this. Only one man can stand victorious.

WHO HAS THE HIGHEST HAIR?

Tim Gutterson

 or

Boyd Crowder

 The winner gets to get laid; the loser only gets to watch a movie with his ladyfriend while in the midst of marital strife and various Raylan shenanigans.

See, wasn't that fun? Almost helps you ignore the brutal, wrenching last moments of the ep, right?


Right?

Direct-to-Video-Sequel Theatre: "Street Kings 2: Motor City"

Let's see how I did in my predictions:

1. Ray Liotta is going to have retired because of the death of a family member and he'll be a total mess. False: Ray Liotta was shot in the knee while ripping off high-level drug dealers and semi-retired to a life of McGruff-like mascot suit duty (though he seemed to love it) before... well, you'll see...
2. There will be a sequence where they are at the undercover officer's funeral, and Ray Liotta flinches during the honor guard salute (that was in the original). Half true: after the first detective is murdered, there is an honor guard; no one flinches though, so we can't give them two (for flinching)
3. The conspiracy will go all the way to the top! Mostly True!!! About 30+ minutes into the film, it is revealed that the man in the hoodie methodically murdering narcotics detectives is...spoiler alert, and shut up, like you're going to see it... Ray Liotta's character, Marty Kingston!
4.  Shawn Hatosy's character will ultimately be involved in the conspiracy and will totally bite it in the third act (ETA: Or maybe not...after all, Chris Evans-not-Pine was an Innocent and died while helping Keanu). Good thing I gave myself an out: Shawn Hatosy's character, Det. Dan Sullivan, actually uncovers what his partner has been up to and... things get murky, but it is implied that he may actually have determined he was going to give Marty a pass, but then Marty explodes Dan's car... which actually was about to be driven to the pregnancy doctor by Dan's 7-months preggo wife. Awk-ward. So Dan naturally gets that super-determined Hatosy glower on his face and goes hunting for vengeance... which shakes out about how you would expect when a guy has killed another guy's pregnant wife (lesson of Street Kings 2: don't bank on pathetic apologies and the assumption that the younger guy is a "better" man than you, because he will stick bullets in you--more on that later--and you will be dead).

Things That Were Better In This Direct-to-Video Sequel Than the Original:

1. The acting: Like I said, I love Keanu, but Street Kings was not his finest hour (his finest hour: The Lake House and possibly Speed). The acting in the original ranged from Trying Real Hard to I'LL SHOW YOU OVERACTING! to What Am I Doing Here/I Am Basically House from the TV Show House to Common and The Game. I think Ray Liotta and Shawn Hatosy did a pretty good and believable job, even when the movie went off the rails in the last 15-20 minutes.
2.  Smaller character pool: Really, it was Dan and Marty, and most of the other characters introduced either supported those characters (the captain, the smug I.A. guy, the wives) or died at the hands of Marty. Ultimately I think this helped Street Kings 2 best the original when it came to The Conspiracy. Remember in The Negotiator, when the conspiracy only involved one top guy and a handful of foot soldiers? In Street Kings, freakin' everyone, save Keanu as the mark and Chris Evans-Pine as The Innocent, was in on The Wall Full of Money.
3. The lack of awkward, shoehorned-in, grody racial slurs and references to rape: it's almost as though the sequel makers saw the original and were like, "Eew, that was gross; let's not do that." There was one scene at a brothel and a few scenes at strip clubs, but both sort of stood to demonstrate how yucky some of the cops were. Though the wife roles were diminished, they're not the myriad model cattle-call casted girlfriends that showed up in Street Kings. Charlotte Ross was age-appropriate and byooootiful as Ray Liotta's wife, and the actress playing Dan's wife was pretty but not in the way ladies in a rap video are "pretty." No one was threatened with rape, and objectification and gratuitous sex and nudity was kept to a tasteful minimum. Feminism at work, sort of!
4. Instead of a lot of splatter violence, there were a few sequences of genuine suspense: in particular, the scene where Marty meets up with Dan late at the office, and you know Marty's gut instinct is telling him that Dan is on to him, and Dan is lying just credibly enough to make his way out of the office, but Marty goes with him, and is totally giving him the Ray Liotta is Crazy and Keeps a Copy of that Unlawful Entry Script Around look that makes me want to wet my pants in fear... pretty impressive, direct-to-video sequel; pretty impressive.

You know, I think "serviceable" seems like one of those backhanded compliments like "workhorse" and "adequate," but really: how much should one or does one expect from a direct-to-video sequel? But this wasn't a terrible or even mediocre movie! It was actually serviceable.

Kind of disappointing, really.

Back to the two main actors: I can't stress how thoroughly creepy Ray Liotta is in that one scene. I caught him in Turbulence one fine Saturday afternoon, and he can do a different, much louder and hammier kind of creepy, but in this, he was following along the spooky Goodfellas "good guy gone way wrong" path, and it was skin-crawly. And he took a page from the William H. Macy in Fargo book and just went balls-out pathetic in his final scene, which is pretty gutsy.

Hatosy wore a variety of very nice suits, vests, and tie clips. It looked like he lifted all that stuff from the set of Public Enemies (a film I have yet to see...uh, probably won't ever see, more like). He did a fine job with the heavy lifting as well as the smaller moments, like acting drunk (a lot of actors super biff that) and seeming mildly annoyed with his wife for her hospitality to his new partner. His best scene was probably the confrontation with the pillar of the community/prostitute frequenting badass cop where he walks the fine line between deference and doing his job and knowing the whole thing stinks to high heaven but is sort of intimidated by the badassness. I also liked the scene where he finds cash money in a crime scene ceiling, and there's a very ambiguous moment where you are unsure whether or not his character planned to pocket it. Hear that, Original Street Kings? Ambiguous character moments.

Also, he made that thinky valley with his forehead a lot. Never Botox, Hatosy. You'd break my heart.

Example from Southland

The one moment that I found unintentionally funny (as opposed to the 42 times something in Street Kings was unintentionally funny) was the confrontation scene between Dan and Marty. Marty is holding a gun on Dan as he drives him to his death, presumably--when will murderers in movies learn to just drive themselves; unwilling chauffeurs are the number one cause of movie car accidents--and a furious, grieving Dan threatens to track down Marty's wife and "stick a bullet in her." I wasn't sure if it was a goofed line that was left in for a "natural" feel (that...doesn't seem likely, since Dan and Marty had a getting-to-know-you convo early in the movie where I'm pretty sure Liotta and Hatosy did a little improv/loosey-goosey delivery to make it more natural) or if it was an intentional line like the William H Macy* line in Boogie Nights about his wife in the driveway with an ass in her cock. If the latter was the case, it sort of fell flat, which was pretty weird in a climatic chase-crash-OMG scene.

Anyway, I'll hold out high hope for the direct-to-sequel to Sniper starring Billy Zane. Street Kings 2, even with your promising Cadillac font in the beginning credits, you were not disappointing enough.

*That's two semi-related William H. Macy references; you all owe me a delicious ice cream sundae.

Sorry, Boyd's Hair; you take a back seat to this Google search string

Dear Justified-loving stranger: You are my favorite out of all the Justified-loving strangers:

Search Keywords

boyd ava justified kiss tongue 1

justified 2x05 cottonmouth 1

I'm watching/fast-forwarding "Street Kings"

It aired on USA yesterday, and even without the swearing, I feel as though I'm following the storyline.

Things I remembered about Street Kings:

1. Keanu barfing first thing in the morning because he's an alllllllcoholic.
2. Forest Whitaker overacting.
3. The wall full of money.

Things I did not remember about Street Kings:

1.  Jay Mohr's hilarious mustache.
2. The stilted dialogue surrounding the hilariously overcomplicated conspiracy.
3. Keanu saying racist stuff. Ugh.
4. The gross amounts of splatter shootings. Blech.
5. The thoroughly unnecessary, absolutely disgusting rape talk and threats from the conspiracy puppets. It's jarring and not at all what I'd expect from dudes who were just, spoiler alert, protecting their ill-gotten "cookie jar" of pilfered money.

Okay, based on this formula and on the following description of Street Kings 2: Motor City (which, by the way, was advertised as coming out on Tuesday, so get on the damn stick, Netflix and/or Redbox!)...

Ray Liotta stars in this tale of two Detroit detectives who team up to investigate the killing of an undercover officer -- a task that leads to evidence of shady goings-on in their own unit, and that has each sleuth eying the other warily.

...I predict the following things for Street Kings 2: Motor City:

1. Ray Liotta is going to have retired because of the death of a family member and he'll be a total mess.
2. There will be a sequence where they are at the undercover officer's funeral, and Ray Liotta flinches during the honor guard salute (that was in the original).
3. The conspiracy will go all the way to the top!
4.  Shawn Hatosy's character will ultimately be involved in the conspiracy and will totally bite it in the third act (ETA: Or maybe not...after all, Chris Evans-not-Pine was an Innocent and died while helping Keanu).

Street Kings 2: Motor City! I'm probably going to have to buy it! (Just kidding.)

ETA For no particular reason, I was investigating the price of Street Kings 2 at Amazon and...

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this DVD with The King's Speech ~ Colin Firth DVD $14.99

+

Price For Both: $30.98

Show availability and shipping details

• This item: Street Kings 2: Motor City ~ Ray Liotta DVD
• The King's Speech ~ Colin Firth DVD 

Sure. Sure, they do.

Don't get cute with me, Redbox

Justified 2x10, "Debts and Accounts"

The episode opened with the two maternal titans of the show's universe sitting down across from one another in a homey family-style cafe. Cash money was on the table within seconds, and Helen Givens began the delicate political process of appealing to history, grief, love, and strength to keep the peace in her corner of Kentucky. By episode's end, the wheels were in motion by the spurned son, Dickie, to create another clusterfuck. It's like a sort of gender-reversed "King Lear."

I found it interesting how quickly Mags dissolved her connection with Dickie, almost as though her affection--such as it was--for Coover was what kept Dickie within the fold. Whether Mags blames Dickie for Coover's demise or whether it is truly a decision borne out of months of thought, as Brother Corrupt Sheriff implies, is murky. Either way, the dissolution of the Bennett family connection was brutal and carried with it immediate, predictable fallout.

Boyd using stupid people to his own means generally doesn't work out well for the stupid person.

The Raylan and Loretta reunion was unexpected, and I thought it really spoke to both characters well: Raylan did not do the regular-adult thing and correct Loretta when she expressed relief at Coover's death and her empty apathy regarding her father's passing, and he did not sell her fairy tales about her life in foster care. And Loretta's facade barely cracked but showed the many conflicting and strong emotions she was feeling, even as an Art-dubbed "tough cookie."

While that pseudo-family transaction went well, the other opening scene between Art and Raylan...wasn't so super-dupe. Art's amused-irritated paternal patience seems to have run out, and his blunt hand-waving dismissal of Raylan as a person and a professional seemed to have very little impact on Raylan, other than inspiring him to his usual petulant-12-year-old deliquent face. It's not a mentor-mentee relationship, per se, but it's had elements of a different kind of personal and professional foster care--the good-hearted Christian sarcasm generator case worker and his perpetually-in-trouble killing machine of a ward--and to see it so seemingly irreparable is pretty heartbreaking, at least to me.

I liked the way the ep showed Raylan and Boyd, Winona and Ava all at a sort of parallel crossroads with their hearts, and it was cool how the show implied that all four continue to walk that very thin line between domestic and wild, criminal and lawman(or woman): while Raylan and Winona were chased through an office building and shot at, Winona discovering that "running away together" had more implications than she realized at the beginning, though Raylan's heart seemed to remain true; meanwhile, in a quieter, no less heavy scene, after returning to his empire-building, Boyd took station outside Ava's house, wistfully watching and pining for her, as she had been doing for him earlier in the ep... only to find that she was not in the house, but out wandering the moors "looking at the stars."

And then, and pardon me while I abandon all pretentions to treat this show with the dignity and respect it clearly deserves as a well-written and powerful show about the bonds and dangers of family and history, the differences between loyalty and criminality, BOYD AND AVA KISSED OMG OMG OMG OMG.

It was pretty awesome, and I'll spare us all embarrassment by not describing the vapors induced by seeing the subtle flicker of tongue during the kiss before Boyd and Ava melted into a hug. (Oh, my gosh, and the previews for next episode where they turn towards the camera in an implication of breaking a heated embrace like they are auditioning for the opening credits of General Hospital or something? Awesome.)

In conclusion: Mags Bennett. Titans. Um. Other...smart stuff.

ETA: Never mind...

The best thing I have seen turn up in my Google search terms thus far

Search Keywords

boyds hair justified

The Street King(s) and I

Recently in my LJ, I've been bugging people about how angry I am that Street Kings 2: Motor City does not have a release date posted yet on Netflix. Severals may be asking yourselves, "What's the big deal with Street Kings? I barely remember that movie. Didn't it star The Game?"

I get you. Me too. I barely remember it either, but it hasn't stopped me from putting a sepia filter on The Way We Were when Street Kings was first rolling out trailers back in Ought Seven. A time of anticipation, a time of crapola, a time of loving Keanu.

Here are things I remember about learning about and preparing for the original Street Kings back in 2008:

**It initially started with the delight and anticipation I feel any time Keanu Reeves is going to play "against type." I've never really been sure what I think his "type" is, but I know what it is not, and that is "British" or "drunk cop." He's tried it a few times and it never seems to pan out the way he wants it to. No one works more at acting (at least according to the interview I read with Shia LeBeouf back when he was still a sprightly up-and-comer and was costarring in Constantine with Keanu) and he tries so hard. So, so hard. He wants to be the guy who brings drunk cops and Shakespearean villains to life, but he is far, far better at pretending to love Sandra Bullock or being an alien, a male prostitute, and/or a robot.

(That's a rom com I'd see: Sandra Bullock as a divorced career gal, and Keanu Reeves as the android she buys for household chores. She learns to love life; he learns to love. There'd be a scene where he is walking her dog. Probably a song by Kelly Clarkson somewhere. Them cooking together.

This is just what Hollywood experts called a "treatment" (probably).)

Anyway: yay for Keanu trying and failing.

**The next thing I remember is that the cast list of Street Kings was the most random assortment of people ever. It was like someone put the contents of IMDb in a Bingo tumbler and cast whoever was extracted. Forest Whitaker! Dr. House! Keanu, of course! Jay Mohr! Chris in the Morning! Some rappers*!

*I very specifically remember delighting in the way the narrator in the ads intoned "AND THE GAME."

**Because I own Narc and The Negotiator, it's not like I can pretend I don't like middling-to-good movies full of character actors about cops and corruption and conspiracies and whatnot. And Street Kings definitely promised to have all those things. Maybe not the "-to-good" part of "middling-to-good," but enough of the other stuff that I'd start out watching it to make fun of it and would grow to love it (kind of like Sandra Bullock and her android Keanu Rosie the Maid Robot).

**As with most things I get excited about mocking, I shared it with one or two friends, which turned into a barrage of hilarious e-mails, and we eventually built actual plans around seeing Street Kings, thus making it a social event.


FAST FORWARD TO TODAY:
I don't actually remember a lot about the movie Street Kings. I remember that Hugh Laurie was IA, so he was sort of the red herring "that guy's a dick, but he won't turn out to be the main bad guy" guy. The rappers seemed to acquit themselves fine. Forest Whitaker, master of subtlety, sprayed spittle on every available surface as the Pragmatically Assholish Mentor Figure or Maybe Partner (and guess who turns out to be the puppet master of the conspiracy, at least to my recollection, which is cloudy). Jay Mohr and Chris in the Morning were...there. Doing stuff. Probably cracking wise and spinning songs by Hothouse Flowers.

So imagine my delight when star of Narc and costar of my very favorite show of the moment, Southland, are going to star in the direct-to-video sequel of this movie I got all ratcheted up about and about which I barely remember anything! SO excited! Let the countdown to Street Kings 2: Motor City begin!

Special bonus: blahmanda dug up the theme song I wrote on behalf of some of the characters:
♫ STREET KINGS
BEIN' CORRUPT AND KILLIN' LOTS OF PEOPLE
STREET KINGS
GRITTY AND THIEVIN'
WALL FULL OF MONEY
STARRING COMMON AND THE GAME ♫ 

Justified 2x09, "Brother's Keeper"

I didn't know exactly how to tackle the latest Justified ep, because so much happened, both with the storyline and with specific character relationships. But I do want to address this:

Shoulder to shoulder. Boy, I bet Harlan County doesn't even know what it's in for. Especially when Ava is wearing red shoes.